culture

====== The Pelosian Way of Life ======

See al­so cal­en­dar | mythol­o­gy | mag­ic | names

====== Con­flict ====== See al­so mil­i­tary

Most Pelosians and all cit­i­zens have served in the mil­i­tary. Most for on­ly 3 years. But they are “kept on the scoll­s” and oc­ca­sion­al­ly train in de­fen­sive ori­ent­ed mili­tias.

==== Weapons ==== Cross­bows have an al­most re­li­gious fas­ci­na­tion for Pelosian­s. From light cal­vary cross­bows to ti­tan­ic siege weapons hurl­ing bolts as thick as a man and all types and sizes in be­tween. With­in Pe­los there are many mas­ters craft­ing ex­cep­tion­al cross­bows. Many mag­i­cal types and esp am­mu­ni­tion ex­ist.

Light re­peat­ing cross­bows are mar­tial weapons for Pelosian­s.

Short­sword - Gla­d­ius, re­verse curved or straight, sin­gle or du­al edged.

Broadsword - like Ro­man Spatha but heav­ier, long straight, broad, du­al edged. Equiv­a­lent to longsword.

Lance - light lance like a spear/­javelin. The oth­er ma­jor weapon be­sides cross­bow used by Pelosian cal­vary.

Maces an flails are un­com­mon but seen. Of­ten im­port­ed from Fist or Sunesh.

Longs­pears(pikes) are used in mil­i­tary for pha­lanx for­ma­tion­s.

Javelins & slings are com­mon amongst skir­mish­ers and nor­mal folk.

Bows and polearms are very rare.

==== Ar­mor ==== Breast­plates are the typ­i­cal form of Pelosian ar­mor. Many are en­chant­ed or made from im­proved ma­te­ri­al­s. Scale, stud­ded, leather, padded are al­so used. Chain types are not pro­duced na­tive­ly but are im­port­ed from Fist. Splin­t, band­ed, half/­full plate is vir­tu­al­ly un­known. Hide is on­ly worn by un­civ­i­lized peo­ples from oth­er places.

Greaves + Brac­ers + Breast­plate = band­ed stats Greaves + Brac­ers + Heavy Breast­plate = ful­l-­plate stats ex­cept AC7

Heavy Breast­plate in­cludes plates/chain for groin/thigh­s/­necks up­per arm­s, etc.

Shields aren’t of­ten used, when they are they tend to be made of met­al and bright­ly dec­o­rat­ed. Buck­ler’s are most com­mon as they don’t in­ter­fere with use of cross­bow. In the mil­i­tary sap­pers and as­sault troops use tow­er shield­s.

Hel­mets vary but most com­mon is the Pelosian War Hel­met used by the mil­i­tary. It is one piece with eye slits and cheek guards form­ing a T. It is usu­al­ly topped with dyed feath­ers or hair tufts in a “mane” fron­t/back or left­/right.

====== Olympiad ====== Nine days of fes­ti­val­s, con­test­s, re­li­gious ob­ser­vances start­ing 5-08 Nalus, First oc­tad when Flame ap­pears in the sky.

There is on­ly one. It is held in Pe­los Ma­jor the same lo­ca­tion for hun­dreds of years. It is very re­li­gious time.

====== Tri­nal­i­ty ====== Pelosian be­lieve in a tri­nal­i­ty of the cos­mos. It deeply per­vades all their cul­ture, be­lief­s, sci­ence, and art.

When we would think du­al­is­ti­cal­ly black­/white, good/evil Pelosians think in tri­nar­ies.

Such as:

• be­­fore - now - af­ter

• cre­a­tion - ex­is­­tence - de­struc­­tion

• black - grey - white

• good - neu­­tral/in­d­if­fer­­ent - evil

• mind - body - spir­it

• an­ces­­tor - self - prog­e­ny

• fa­ther - child - moth­­er

• male - pre­pubescen­t/nei­ther - fe­­male

• he - it - she

• men­­tal - essence - chan­nel­ing/spir­i­­tu­al (the sources of mag­ic)

These are not ab­so­lutes. Pelosians are di­verse and free-­think­ing. Their philoso­phers and aca­demics de­bate end­less­ly the ex­act na­tures of var­i­ous tri­nar­ies.

Pe­los ar­chi­tec­ture, art, and de­sign is filled with tri­an­gles and groups of 3 or 9, less fre­quent­ly 27.

Al­though their math is base 10, they are fond of count­ing by, group­ing by, and or­ga­niz­ing by 3, 9(­called “t­wo three­s”), and 27(“three three­s”). Cubes (to the 3rd pow­er) of any num­ber are ‘spe­cial’. Ex “three fours” for 4 to the 3rd, “three ten­s” for 10 to the 3rd.

====== The Sky ====== Pelosians be­lieve ‘s­pace’ is a vast sea of un­known liq­uid and that the var­i­ous ob­jects in the day and night­time sky are is­land­s, con­ti­nents, the lights of cities and great barges.

They know Dirt is a great sphere that spins and floats in this sea. Trapped in the Sun’s whirlpool but kept from be­ing sucked in­to it by the pow­ers of the God­s.

There is no moon. But there is three very bright sky ob­jects known as — “Fortress” or “Night Sun” -

The white ob­ject & bright­est. It does not come and go as the oth­er two.

— “Sky Lady” or “Waterdrop” -

The blue ob­jec­t. Vis­i­ble in this part of the world dur­ing the months 2-7

— “Sky Lord” or “Flame” -

The re­dish ob­jec­t. Vis­i­ble in this part of the world dur­ing the months 5-8

From 5-7 Wa­ter­drop and Flame both are the in sky. This is known as “courtship” or “joined” time and is the har­vest time. When they both pass near Fortress it is com­mon­ly called “wed­ding” or “coro­na­tion”. Nei­ther is vis­i­ble from 9-1, win­ter.

Mod­ern Peo­ples do not be­lieve these bright lights are ac­tu­al sen­tient en­ti­ties but old fa­bles are still re­count­ed. One re­lates how the fairest la­dy(wa­ter­drop) wan­dered all over the great sky sea look­ing for a wor­thy mate un­til she found one around 5(flame). They spent all of 6 & 7 court­ing un­til she was sat­is­fied and of­fered her­self. He ac­cept­ed and she stole away to the fortress to be joined short­ly by him. They don’t leave the fortress for the next sev­er­al pe­ri­od­s, busy mak­ing ba­bies.